My name is Barbara Durfee but I have been called Arrow for over 35 years so I do consider this my real name. It is not necessarily a pen name but my nickname so to speak and I prefer to be called Arrow. I will shoot as an Arrow with all I have to say to you. Direct and to the point... no BS here. Please address me as Arrow.
My adventure through life has been not of the ordinary. I have traveled the highways and byways of the Untied States like most women have not, having suffered severely from wander-lust as a young woman. What is important for you to know here is that I have studied healing from the conventional view through to the most unconventional. I have trained as a lay midwife, studied Native American Ceremony, studied with psychic healers, and worked as a nurse for over 27 years.
These experiences have brought me to a very different point of view on healing and what actually works. Although practical experience in hospitals and other institutions has taught me much about how westernized medicine works I have seen their shortcomings first hand. I know what can work and what certainly does not cure in many different arenas. Alternative medicine, from a wide spectrum of philosophy and its applications, has been a passion of mine since my early 20´s. Now at 57 I am convinced that if you want health and longevity you must educate yourself and largely turn your back on the conventional teachings of the day and endeavor to learn your own body and psychology and the things that can truly nurture yourself on a soul level as well as physical level.
I have two years of community college, massage school in the mid seventies, nursing school to become a Licensed Practical Nurse, lay midwifery school, I have a diploma from the British Institute of Homeopathy (DIHOM), I am a certified hospice and palliative care nurse (CHPLN), having worked with the dying intimately and intensely for 6 years in an inpatient hospice. I am currently working for a diploma in clinical nutrition from the British Institute of Homeopathy. I am an editor for the blog www.HealthSalon.org and I write frequently in a talk forum called Natmedtalk where I and others advise people on alternative health concerns.
Some people ask me why I am not an RN. I will say this...that in the field of nursing there is little that an LPN does not do that an RN does when it comes to direct patient care. When I was involved in nursing school I saw that the RN did more paperwork than I cared for. I wanted to be with the patient. I did not want administrative responsibilities. I did not want to be asked nor feel obliged to conform and then have to hone that conformity into policy and dictates through whatever institution I might be in. When I saw that being an LPN could meet my needs for service I decided not to advance. I also was concerned that the program and work might incline me away from alternative thinking. To this day I still am satisfied with my choice.
In nursing I worked in pediatrics for about 15 years in the home care field in Dallas, Texas. Most of my patients were very complex, very sick kids. We took care of them at home because this is what finances permit in this day of longevity for the severely ill. Often my patient was surrounded by high tech equipment in the home, sort of like a mini ICU that the nurse and family would manage together.
After a move to Salt Lake I found this type of work hard to come by so I started exploring geriatric care. I found working in nursing homes absolutely deplorable and with little hope for reformation. After a stint in an Alzheimer´s lock down unit I followed a beloved Director of Nursing from there into a new job. I worked for an LTAC, that is, long term acute care unit, for almost a year. This job not only honed my adult acute care skills but also taught me so much about the quality of care, or lack of it, in the acute setting, and this revelation coming from work in a facility that I still think was a pretty good one.
After this I went into my long dreamed of desire to work with the dying. Birth and death have always been of great interest to me, the two sides of the coin. I started to work in one of the nation’s leading inpatient hospices located in Salt Lake City. There I remained for 6 years, until my husband retired and we retreated to the mountains in Idaho to build our home on a few acres.
These days I keep busy writing my book and reawakening my interest in massage. I had practiced massage for about 6 years previous to nursing school working in ski resorts and though beauty salons... hey, that was before the spa concept. You see, I´ve been into this for a long time.
More than anything, my passion has always been and continues to be teaching about health and awakening. Health and awakening you might say? Yes, I see that health and awakening go hand in hand and neither is free. The cost is paid by the fires of your own evolution though the trials of undertanding your own body, mind and soul.
So you may find as I write for this forum that you will be learning some new perspectives on how to attain and keep health. I am fierce and I demand that you think things through and that you consider all the possibilities of disease, its treatment options, its cause and it cure. My goal is that you learn to hold your own health with responsibility and with freedom of conscious awakened choice.
Sincerely to you with Love and Light,
Barbara "Arrow" Durfee LPN, DIHOM, CHLPN
Submit a Comment - Suggestion - Request to this Editor
NOTE: If you want a response, please make sure to include your email address so we can write back. Also, make sure that any anti-spam blockers you have are set up to allow mail from bellaonline.com! Otherwise our response won't be able to get to you.
|
